Warmth Sets Against the Muscles

And the Eyes Slope Downwards

by Tom Lee

Dusk rolls like thunder, and there are gray clouds and gray wind and gray earth, and fog. And the taste of rain. A sigh, someone understands. Take me angel of death, and forgive me of my sins. For I have sinned, and seek salvation from anguish. The taste of rust against the tongue, and the teeth itch against the coldness, but it’s numbing. Warmth sets against the muscles and the eyes slope downward. There is a trickling, a drip, a drop. A smile. The wrong face.

•••

He takes his steps slowly across the grass field, towards the taped off section where the dead body lies. The third this month. It’s determined as suicide quickly, seeing as the girl as hung herself. There have been more deaths in the past two months than in the past two years. But unlike any of cases before, these deaths are all connected, and its shown all too easily. All by a mark on the left temple, a dark splotch of red ink, and a sticky note, deep yellow. These can’t just be suicides, and he’s not the only one who thinks so. But he doesn’t understand, and lets out a sigh, irritated and disturbed. This one was a girl. Hung her self from a willow tree, with the deep yellow sticky note. Reading the words “It’s my mother’s dress” over and over, tracing each letter. He stares at the yellow note, it’s edges ruffled. It’s writing perfect and precise. And then stares at the girls dress, and feels the texture between his thumb and forefinger. Old, worn, moist.

“Obvious, it’s obvious. It’s her mothers dress. She killed herself because of her mother. Ford! find out where this girls mother lives.”

“Do it yourself detective, that’s a hasty assumption.”

“Ford, I’m asking you for a favor. Just do it.”

“I’m tired of favors Nick, I’m tired of them.”

“Thanks Ford. You’re a doll, a babe.”

“Fuck off Nick.”

Nick steps against the wind and turns his head so it lay angle with the girl now set along the stretcher by the ambulance. Her face was covered up still, and he was not sure what she looked like. Nick steps towards the girl, drops to crouch over her and lifts up the heavy black covering. She’s young. Soft eyes and brown hair. Her lips are blue and pale, and she looks tired, distraught. There are bruisings around her neck, and as Nick asks around, he realizes no one has looked at them further. She’s built gently, but not that gently, and the bruisings are too deep and wide to be from the rope alone. He moves her jaw line, titling her head by the chin to the right, and gets down on one knee to look closer. His eyes widen.

“She’s been choked, some one choked her. Ford!”

“What now Nick?”

“She’s been choked. This isn’t suicide.”

Nick doesn’t believe in heaven, and he doesn’t believe in coincidence. He believes in murder, and he believes in anger.

As Nick leaves the campus green, and drives his dark blue car back to his office, he thinks about the girl, about why someone would choke her to death and then hang her. There were 8 suicide cases total, including the girl. They all had killed themselves in specifics ways that were connected to the thing that drove them to suicide and the thing they loved the most. Two opposites mixed in one move of death and emancipation. But that changed, it changed it to something different, there was chance of murder. Of force.

Sticky notes. Sticky notes could be bought anywhere. As Nick walks into his office, brown walled and dirty floored, he thinks over and over, tries hard to believe everyone else assigned to the cases. He tries to believe it’s not murder, that these people are just killing themselves. But even that thought is horrible. He’s not one to sit still, and before even sitting down at his desk, he walks right back out the door and down Hopkins from his office Gioia. Someone is buying a lot of sticky notes some where in Berkeley, and he needs to find out who. The weather’s dark, and there are breaks in the clouds above, and small slips of light jump through to the ground. It’s close to sunset. Nick gets his food to go, and makes his way back to the office, grungy and brown. He lives alone, but didn’t used to. Used to love a family, a wife, a child. A small daughter. Not anymore. Not ever again. Slouching into his chair, he forgets about the food and sways into fantasy, titling his head to the ceiling, looking through the window, thinking. He’s not going to let any more people die. He sees himself cuffing the killer. His eyes crawl shut. The door closes quietly, and a shadow that is not Nick’s rests across the floor. A second goes by. The door is opened and shut once again. Only dreams cross Nick’s mind.

“You know it’s too late, she’s with him now, it’s been years. She doesn’t need you, and hasn’t needed you, and she is laughing at his jokes, and touching his arms, and loving the glance in his eyes, and you’re an after thought, so small and insufficient. Rejection, always rejection.”

“No.”

“Yes. You know what you want now.”

“No.”

“It’s so simple, you just take this note, and you put it in your coat pocket, and you die.” 
 “I don't need it.”

“You know, you know you’re nothing now. Take the note.”

“I just wanted...”

“I know what you wanted, it’s too late.”

“nine years...”

“Stop. You love how they spread their wings.”

The phone wakes him up. What time is it? It’s light out, must be dawn. When did I fall asleep? Nick pushes his hair off his forehead, and yawns, tasting his dry mouth and feeling his old legs. No sound, and then the phone starts picking it’s way through. Fourth ring, pick it up.

“Hello?”

“Nick, you need to get up to Lawrence Hall, there’s been another suicide.”

“What? Who am I talking to?”

“Nick, it’s Ford. Come on, we need you to come up here, now.”

“What time is it?”

“It’s 6:30, why’s it matter?”

“6:30 in the morning?”

“Yeah, who gives a shit, get in your damn car and get up here.”

“Okay.”

As he pulls up, first light stretches across the sky, sun lying down across the tops of the hills, working through the streets, down to the bay. Nick parks, steps out his car. Amidst the din, uprising, spirals, ambulances parked halfway down the hill, into the next parking lot, below where Ford stands. The edge, some one jumped off the edge? That’s almost too short a fall.

“Nick, christ, you’re here. Male, 27, caucasian. He jumped. Must have done it around a half hour ago. A janitor found him. There was another yellow sticky note.”

“It’s murder. I’m telling you it’s murder.”

“You don’t know that Nick. No one was around to see it happen. That girl? Rope burn, I’m telling you it’s rope burn.”

“What about the forensic tests, what about those?”

“Too much bruising, too hard to tell for sure.”

“That just proves she was choked. It’s in your face Ford!”

“We’re still not sure.”

“The sticky notes Ford, the mark on the left temple! Connections!”

“This one didn’t have a mark.”

“What?”

“This one didn’t have a mark.”

He’s getting sloppy. That’s it. 10 murders deep, he’s just getting sloppy. It’s getting to him, it would get to me. Nick walks down to where the man’s body lies in a crumpled pile, underneath a white cloth tarp. He asks one of the investigators for the sticky note. She hands it to him, looking concerned. He reads the words. This doesn’t make sense. Nick hears the woman's cellphone ring, and then instantly above him he hears Ford calling his name, leaning his head over the edge, shouting about another murder. Two in one day? Nick stumbles quickly up the hill and into his car, and follows Ford. The sticky note is caught by the wind. Only three words: I am coming.

The cars wind through the Berkeley hills, down to Hopkins. So close to his office. All the way through to Gilman and down to Talbot, where there are already two police cars parked in front of the church.

The church was old, and took up the entire block, from Talbot to Cornell. It’s doors were large and wide and wooden, and inside the pews were smooth and lead to an center stage. There was a table, and on that table, Nick saw the glass first, filling with drops of blood. On the table, which looked hard and stable, was the impaled body of a young man. Maybe around the age of 20. He strikingly resembled Nick, and only though Nick thought this thought, that this was him 20 years ago, the officers and investigators standing in the church knew that this man resembled Nick.

“What does the sticky note say Ford?”

“There is no sticky note.”

“There’s nothing?”

“There’s a picture. It’s of your wife.”

“What?”

“It’s a picture of your ex-wife, when she was in college.”

“I don’t understand.”

As the ambulance arrived, and the body was taken away to be identified in full and put on record as the tenth death related to an unknown alleged murderer, Nick ran the picture up and down his index fingers. It was an old picture, one of his own. How the murderer had gotten his or her hands on the picture, he only feared the answer. Pain was in his legs and he felt sick, and took the picture outside, and slowly walked down the block. On the side of the church was an open courtyard, where Nick found a heavy bench to lay against. He looked at his ex-wife, and thought his daughter. 6 years old, and he hadn’t seen her for three of them. He wasn’t sure where he had broken his marriage, what he had done. How he had bored her, he didn’t know. He thought he was a good husband. He thought he made his wife happy. Happiness, we’re all in it together. No. She didn’t need him. He was all but an after thought. Broken, sloping, slouching. Then a man stepped from behind a parked car, and strode toward Nick. Long strides, significant in every step.

“You know, I’ve been watching you Nick.”

“I recognize you.”

“I know you miss her.”

“It’s you, you killed all these people.”

“Your wife was my favorite of all. And your daughter, precious.”

“I’ll fucking murder you.”

“Not if you murder yourself first.”

“What?”

“I know what you need Nick.”

“Raise your fucking hands.”

“Yes. Come on Nick, You know what you want now.”

“No.”

“It’s so simple, you just take this note, and you put it in your coat pocket, and you die.” 
 “I don't need it.”

“You know, you know you’re nothing now. Take the note.”

“I just wanted...”

“I know what you wanted, it’s too late.”

“nine years...”

“Stop. You love how they spread their wings.”

•••

They’re all broken, these human beings. Crooked eyes looking for the same thing. And the angel, she stands behind me, and she stares, but it’s soft and brief. And forgive me Father, for I have sinned, and take from me what I hate most, and send me towards salvation from my anguish, for it is the body which lays heavy and my soul that strains upwards as I lose grip on my flesh and I feel the darkness which haunts me at night and I ask forgiveness, for I have sinned, and take from me what I hate most, and I will hear salvation as brass trumpets crying clear in the distance, calling out my steps through the gates of heaven into your sight and wrath. The taste of rust against the tongue, and the teeth itch against the coldness, but it’s numbing. Warmth sets against the muscles and the eyes slope downward. There is a trickling, a drip, a drop. A smile. The wrong face.